The Sky Is Black!

  as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine

RaisingDad

by Jim and Henry Duchene

The Sky Is Black!

“a glitch in the simulatrix”

 

It was raining.

Not pouring, but steady.

I had already let the dogs outside to do their business. They weren't happy, but they do what they're told. My father, on the other hand, is a stubborn old coot. That’s okay. So am I.

     He was sitting at the kitchen table. At the HEAD of the kitchen table. You know... MY chair.

     "You'll have to skip your walk today, pop," I told him. "It's raining."

     "No, it's not," he said. 

     My father is a man who doesn’t like to be told what to do. It had only rained all night. That morning was no different.

     "Of course it's raining," I told him. "Look outside."

     "I AM looking outside," he said, not looking outside.

     "Touch your dog. He's wet. That's because it's raining."

     My father called his dog over and petted him affectionately. I could tell he was hoping for dry fur to prove me wrong, but the look on his face told me he was touching a wet, stinky dog.

     "Dry as a bone," he insisted.

     The situation started to get frustrating. 

     "He's wet, because it's raining. Can't you hear it?"

      "Hear what?"

     "The rain."

     "The what?"

     "The rain."

     What was I thinking? My father‘s ears… well, let’s just say if he went to court, it wouldn’t be called a hearing.

     He pretended to listen.

     "I don’t hear anything ," he finally said, which was probably true.

     My father is pre-Alzheimer’s, so he has his moments, but rain is rain. Still… at my age… why argue? He may have been the immovable object, but I wasn’t in the mood to be an irresistible force.

     That's when my wife made her entrance. Have I told you she’s beautiful? She is. Anyway, she walked into our kitchen just as I had conceded defeat.

She’s got that kind of timing.

     "Good morning,” she greeted us cheerfully.

My father wasn’t so cheerful.

     "I'm going for a walk," he grunted, making his statement sound like a complaint.

     "A walk?" my wife sputtered, giving me the stink eye. "But it's raining."

     "It’s not raining," he insisted. "Touch my dog."

     I remember telling her something similar when we were first dating. All it got me was a sharp elbow to the gut. I still laugh about it, and she still pretends to be mad. 

     "Dad," my wife pleaded.

     "It was, but it stopped. Now's my chance to get my walk out of the way. Before it starts up again."

     "But it hasn't stopped."

     "Sure it has. Touch my dog. He's dry as a bone."

     "I'm not going to touch your wet dog." 

     That's similar to what I heard just before I was assaulted. Which reminds me of a joke:

“A peanut walks into a bar. He was assaulted.”

Think about it.

Anyway, she lectured him that not only was it wet, but the rain clouds were low and it was foggy. Did he want to catch a cold?

My father’s not one to be lecture.

     "There’s no fog," he pooh-poohed.

     "Yes, there is," my wife insisted.

     "Where?"

     "Outside!"

     My father looked outside. I looked at my wife. My wife looked at me.

     “He’s your problem,” her eyes said.

     There must have been a glitch in The Simulatrix (April 2022). Otherwise my father wouldn’t be insisting it wasn’t raining when it obviously was.

     When I was in high school I was about as obnoxious a know-it-all as they come–you know, your typical teenager–and that led to countless arguments between my father and I.

     "The sky is black!" he would finally tell me when he had enough.

     The sky is black?

     What he meant was it didn't matter if he was wrong. If he said something, then it was so. Of course, I didn't buy that argument for a second, and that led to even more arguments. Which brings us back to…

     He got up, grabbed his windbreaker, his hat, and headed to the back door leading out of the house, probably trying to will the precipitation to stop, but it didn't. The rain was as stubborn as my father. 

     I know what you’re thinking, but what could I do? Tie him down? There’s not enough duct tape in the world for that. Plus, I don’t think I’d do well in prison for elder abuse. 

     Two minutes later, he was back. Not soaking, but wet. He walked in, shaking his head with a sheepish grin. He sat down and didn’t say anything.

     And neither did I.

 ************************

Why walk in the rain when you can jump in the puddles?

theduchenebrothers@gmail.com

@JimDuchene

Death & Other Minor Inconveniences

  as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine

RaisingDad

by Jim and Henry Duchene

Death & Other Minor Inconveniences

“never ask anyone about anybody”

     Hungry or not, my father insists on eating on a schedule. You know what that means? It means I eat on a schedule, too. HIS schedule. You wouldn’t believe the pounds I’ve packed on as a result. Although, if I’m honest, women are the primary reason there's more of me to love. By women, I mean Betty Crocker, Little Debbie, and Dolly Madison. My beautiful wife doesn't think I’m overweight, though. Just six inches too short for my weight.

Getting back to my father, my wife’s concerned he'll choke on something while eating, so she makes me join him as a sort of culinary bodyguard. This chore is less of a calling and more of a burden because my father likes to drone on about who’s sick or has died. These conversations begin benignly enough—“Shouldn’t you be mowing the lawn?” he’ll say, confusing me with the guy who mows our lawn—and go downhill after that. Something as innocuous as my going to the store turned into a tale of woe.

     “Be careful,” he warned. “My friend went to Costco and ended up in the hospital. He went there for the free samples, because his wife doesn’t cook anymore. ‘I’ve cooked enough,’ she told him. He fell in the dog food aisle. Which is funny, because he doesn’t have a dog.”

     He stopped as if that was the end of the story.

     “Did he break his hip?” I asked.

     “I don’t know, but now he can’t walk. All because his wife won’t cook.”

     My grandson and I recently walked past an older gentleman in the Costco parking lot. He was squatting at the back of his car, fiddling with something under the bumper. His wife sat in the passenger seat.

     We were only in the store for five minutes. Shopping doesn’t take me long. Unlike my wife, I only go into a store to buy something, not to look for something to buy. On our way back, he was laying on the pavement.

     “Are you okay?” I asked him.

     “Can you help me up?” he said, lifting a hand in my direction.

     I did, and he thanked me. He explained he squatted down to do something, but didn’t have the leg strength to get back up. The harder he tried, the weaker his legs got, until they finally crumpled. Embarrassed, he laid there, hoping to build up enough strength to try again.

     “Will you be okay?” I asked him.

     He assured me he would. His wife, meanwhile, never moved. She was probably preoccupied with the war in Ukraine. Walking away, I told my grandson, “It’s always good to help people.”

     “Why didn’t his wife help him?” he wanted to know.

     “That,” I told him, “is a good question.”

     Another time, I was walking behind an elderly couple. The lady had a cane and was having trouble walking, so her husband, who had walking issues of his own, held her by the arm to steady her. Unfortunately, he leaned into her so much she angrily pushed him away, snapping, “Stay on your side!” I felt sorry for him. He only wanted to help, but his age made him an annoyance.

     These kind of annoyances are why I’ve made improvements to my father’s bathroom. I'm trying to avoid a tragedy rather than react to one. He steps tentatively into his bathtub like an astronaut negotiating outer space, so I’ve put friction strips on the floor of his tub so he won’t slip on the wet porcelain. I’ve installed shower handles for him to steady himself with, as well as a handle by his commode. He fought the idea at first, but has come to agree that life is easier with them. I’ve also installed a toilet-seat bidet. He swore he would never use it, but now, on hot days, I think he likes to go in there to give himself a spritz.

     The thermostat has developed into a problem between us. He’s always changing the temperature, and then denying he does it.

     “Who raised the temperature?”

     “Not me,” he’ll say.

     But, really, who else can it be?

     I’m practically to the point of attaching a fake thermostat to the wall, and hiding the real one behind an oil painting, the way the rich hide their valuables in the movies.

     Even though my father doesn’t like talking on the phone, occasionally he’ll get a call from a friend or relative. When he does, it sounds like a contest to win the title of Most Depressing. That’s when I learned to never ask anyone about anybody. It’s always bad news. The last time I did, I was told, “Haven’t you heard? He’s in jail for…” Well, you don’t want to know why he’s in jail, but you might find a picture of it in Hunter's laptop. Better to be like my father and his cronies who can barely hear each other.

     “Guess who died?”

     “What?”

“Not what, who.”

“Who what?”

     “Just guess.”

     “I can’t hear you!”

     It’s like listening to an Abbott & Costello routine.

A few months before my uncle died, he called my father.

“I have some good news and I have some bad news,” he said.

“Give me the good news first,” my father told him.

As soon as his brother finished telling him the good news, my father hung up.

"Why did you hang up?” I asked him.

“I’m too old to listen to bad news,” he said.

Sadly, now that my father's learned to make the most out of life, it's almost gone.

 

 ************************

 I like my wrinkles.

They cover my age spots.

theduchenebrothers@gmail.com

@JimDuchene